Champions Battle for the Fate of the Future!: The Wild Finale of (Swords Versus Tanks Book 5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

of pain. No running for her.
    She dropped her cloak and drew her sword, not, she realised now, that it would do her much good. Maybe she could take some of them with her?
    The soldiers spread out. A stocky woman barked an order. They slung their guns on their backs and drew long clubs. “Come on now, girly girly,” said the woman. “Put down the sword. We won’t hurt you and clearly you don’t know how to use it.”
    Beyond the soldiers, the priests were still too far away.
    At any moment, Thorolf would spring the ambush just to save her, and her mission would be a failure.
    Maud reached for the sylph and pulled. NOW, she thought. DEFEND ME OR LIE FOREVER UNDER THE EARTH TREE, SUFFERING ITS DEFILING TENDRILS IN YOUR SECRET PLACES.
    The soldiers closed in on her. One knocked her sword aside. Another clubbed her in the face.
    Reeling, Maud raised her hand to protect herself. Her forearm blazed. Somebody punched her in the stomach and she buckled over, fighting for breath.
    The air howled. The soldiers went down like wheat in a gale. Screaming, they rolled and tumbled along the beach leaving behind a flotsam of weapons.
    The priests, meanwhile, had assembled themselves. Now they approached as a body, chanting in unison, blasting out their icy purity.
    The sylph recoiled on Maud. It clung to her like a frightened cat — tore at her hair, frost-clawed her bare legs and she was glad of the weight of her mailshirt.
    Here and there, soldiers struggled to their feet, or got onto their hands and knees and retched.
    The priests, meanwhile, advanced down the beach, a glacier of white robes. Their prayers enfolded Maud like a snowstorm and she knew herself to be what she was,a demon-tainted harlot.
    Maud shivered. The weight of self-loathing pressed on her shoulders. She hugged her knees,… felt herself surrender to repentance and penance and…
    Two-score javelins whirred overhead to thwack into the heads and chests of the priests. With a thunderclap yell of “Odin!”, the Northmen burst out of the concealing fog and charged past Maud up the beach.
    The priests left off their psalms and scattered like great flapping chickens.
    Whooping, the Northmen slammed into them. Swords and axes whirled. Crimson gore splashed onto over the well-laundered cassocks. Here and there a priest broke from the slaughter, managed a few paces, then went down with a thrown axe in his back.
    Maud pulled the spear from the dying old woman and, fighting the drag of her mailshirt, levered herself to her feet. The guilt and self-loathing had evaporated when the priests stopped praying.
    Thorolf and a few of the older Northmen strode around the fallen priests, methodically slicing throats. The younger warriors, however, had a screaming priest face down on the sand and were laughing as they hacked away at his spine.
    Maud smiled. A rare chance to see the Blood Eagle being performed and on a very appropriate subject.
    Something moved up on the ridge. Two of the Invaders’ boxy war engines emerged from the mist. A figure perched half out of the roof of each.
    Maud’s gorge rose. She yelled, “Watch out!”
    Nobody heard her.
    Maud reached for the sylph but could not find the strength to exact the last of her three wishes.
    There was the sound of tearing fabric. Two glittering streams lanced out and swept the beach, splashed off mail coats, swept away legs.
    Thorolf roared an order in Northern. Dragging their wounded, the surviving Northmen bunched up and jogged down the sand.
    Maud turned and limped toward the water.
    Ahead, the fog rolled back to reveal the dragon-prowed longship bobbing in the shallows. One wish left.
    As the waves lapped her ankles, something howled overhead. Water fountained. The Sea Serpent rolled and wallowed.
    The Northmen caught up with her. Thorolf shouted an order and somebody threw her over his shoulder. His mailed back was cold and rough on her cheek. She raised her head to look.
    One of the tanks lurched forward and —